this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Not leftists, Stalinists; The sort of people who end up killing all the other leftists any chance they think they might be close to taking power.
Mate I do not give a flying fuck what any of these people with zero power are. I care about actually achieving shit. Fortunately I live in the UK where this bizarre sectarianism has absolutely no presence, thank fuck for that.
If you lived in the UK you'd be against the head of the RMT union currently striking the UK railroads, who publicly calls James Connolly his political hero and is an obvious marxist-leninist. You'd be against Jeremy Corbyn, because he defends the Soviet Union and always has, he also promotes the Black Panthers who defended north korea (if you look in the corner of the video around 2:00 there's even a cute little soviet cccp statue). You'd be against Diane Abbott, because she's publicly defended Mao on national television. You'd probably find something to be against John Mcdonnell who has said his job is to overthrow capitalism on the BBC, probably because he's quoted Mao and read his little red book in parliament?
My point here is that you've got to get a grip. We don't do this bizarre shit over in the UK because there's literally no point, there is no communist revolution just around the corner, the conditions do not exist for it. What matters is what we can achieve RIGHT NOW, when a revolution is actually on the cards then we can decide what that revolution should actually fucking look like. In the meantime these people are all mild lukewarm elected MPs as socdems that just want to give people more welfare and improve basic living standards, but you would call them evil tankies for any of these things.
If you don't build at least SOME power now you will have absolutely none when the conditions deteriorate enough for a real revolution, and if that is the case it will be fascism that wins, not any sect of the absolutely non-existent left in your country.
What you're viewing above is how radical you need to be just to establish and maintain lukewarm european welfare and social safety nets. Get that into your head and you might actually stop the aussie government dumping migrants into concentration camps and help improve people's lives for fuck's sake. You should know better than this anyway, half the union leadership of australia are marxist-leninists, and the other half are trots. What union are you in? I'll tell you whether you need to throw your union leader under the bus for some fucking do-nothing liberal because of your sectarianism obsession. Are you even in one?
Are you saying the UK, you don't have leftist factionalism? Fucking get off it mate.
Not really among the actual leftists. There is a conflict between the neoliberal starmerites who fake being left and the actual leftists that he has been purging so hard it puts stalin to shame, there is barely any fighting among the actual UK left because we do not give a fuck. I don't fucking care what the person next to me on the roof of an Israeli weapons factory believes, I care that he's going to have my back when the cops show up. I do not care what the person next to me on the picket line believes, I care that they're fucking there. If you said this shit in person at an event you'd get knocked out or if you're lucky sidelined and ostracised by just about every group in the left for being a wrecker whose goal is clearly not to help but to divide.
Very very rarely there is some extremely cringe jabs between the trots and the MLs, but not particularly often because there's no fucking point. The anarchists are ironically the least sectarian, simply caring that people show up when the hunt sabos need it because there's fuck all people in the countryside as it is to be picky about what kind of leftist someone is. Everyone shows up for everyone's events, because having a left is far more fucking important than arguing over 100 year old cringe while workers lives are being made worse NOW. All you're doing with this shit is helping capitalists by weakening leftists.
And you didn't answer my question about what union you're in?
I agree with a lot of your points about pragmatism but there absolutely is factionalism on the left in the UK, unless (as it looks like you are doing) you say some of them are not actually leftist and therefore the remaining group is small enough that it's not arguing with itself.
The right are also split but in normal times they are better at keeping the worst of it behind closed doors and rallying around the leader when the dust settles. Lack of message discipline is what kills the left at the ballot box. New Labour were good at it and they won; Starmer is trying to do the same - sensible tactic in my opinion.
The neoliberals are not actually leftist. This is a 100% fact, if you are arguing that the capitalists are leftists then you are also not a leftist. They are centre right. The transphobic neoliberals and privatizers trying to destroy the nhs and build a "free and open" energy market for the sake of preventing our attempts at nationalisation can eat my ass, so can their by-association transphobic mysogynistic supporters. You can get to fuck with your "yeah they're actually toooootally leftists dude belieeeeeve me" bullcrap. It is unbelievable that you would mention New Labour under Tony Blair, a party that killed 2 million people and exploited the fuck out of the middle east and continue to pretend that you are left wing, you are not, you are an imperialist, capitalist neoliberal.
It is blatantly clear why you didn't answer the question about what union you're in and did not cite any organising, you don't do any for the left and you've made that abundantly clear to anyone that knows these parties and groups. The only reason you have any votes at all is because the majority of people here are americans and they have absolutely no fucking idea what we're talking about now.
All they need to know is that you support neoliberals. The crowd here definitely knows neoliberalism isn't leftist.
No surprises that this conversation started off with you trying to discredit me by screeching "tankie", you knew that if you made it clear what your actual political affiliations are and made a real political argument it would be unpopular.
I'm a different user to the guy you were originally having a conversation with.
No need to get so personal!
Oh well doesn't change much does it?
There is nothing personal about pointing out your support for transphobes. It's just a political fact. If you don't want to be a transphobe, do not support transphobes. Much like if you don't want to be called a neoliberal, don't defend neoliberals, and definitely don't try to claim they're left. You'd get laughed out the room in any offline scenario.
I'm not a transphobe and you have no information on which to base that assumption. If you call everyone a transphobe it ceases to have any meaning and you have nothing left for when someone is being actually transphobic.
You support Starmer. Starmer's labour is transphobic, he has given interviews to mumsnet where he says explicitly terf things. He has explicitly come out in favour of segregating trans people from women's bathrooms and other spaces. You support this. Ergo you are transphobic. The party needs shot of him he's a disgrace.
Your reading comprehension is terrible
"I totally wasn't saying I support Starmer when I said what he's doing to labour is actually a good thing and also that New Labour, who he is an ideological successor to, were good!"
Pull the other one mate. At least have this conversation without the dishonesty.
This is such tenuous reasoning. Firstly I didn't say "I support Starmer", I commented on whether or not I thought his tactics would be effective in getting elected. I often comment on things the Tories do and say in the same way, and saying " I think X will work" is not an endorsement of X.
Secondly, even if I do intend to vote labour it doesn't mean I'm endorsing 100% of everything the party/leader says. On an individual level you say don't care about peoples views and only what they do / achieve so this attitude towards Labour seems completely bizarre to me?
The 'perfection or bust' attitude to political parties and leaders gets you another Tory government whereas the pragmatic option might actually get us some incremental improvement. Ironic that we've ended up here in a conversation that started as a discussion about left wing factionalism where you claimed it doesn't exist.
Honestly, as a left wing person in the UK who made some reasonable points higher up the thread about actually achieving something that improves the lives of people now by being pragmatic, who are you going to vote for in the 2024 election?
And this attitude is the one that has existed up until now. Good job neoliberals! Well done! You're responsible for everything that is wrong in this country!
The issue is that you don't actually participate in anything outside of voting once every 5 years. You have barely any idea what fighting to improve workers lives involves, and your assessment of the struggle against neoliberals as a supporter of them is trash. Why am I vicious about them? Because it is precisely what is necessary to get the leadership change we need to get even a mild centrist in. Starmer is not just any neoliberal, he is an arch neoliberal selected by Kissinger and friends at their clubhouse the Trilateral Commission, where they all rub shoulders deciding the future of neoliberal politics and strategy in the world. We can't get a leftist into power, it's not happening for at least 10 years, all we can do is try to get this shitbag out, try to undo the dismantling of party democracy he has performed internally, try to purge the zionists and those funded by fucking mossad, and try to get some sort of normal back from which we will have a starting point for leftist politics in the party again. They went scorched earth once they got Corbyn out. They completely fucked everything.
That's why I'm vicious about it. Because anything other than it does not display the gravity of the situation to naive people that still think everyone in the country simply has different ideas about "what's best for everyone" and that some of them are a little incompetent. None of these people are incompetent people that want to do good, they are competent and want to do awful shit things for the vast majority of people for the benefit of the finance industry backers that own pretty much everything.
So who are you voting for?
Decide when we get there. Rumours still flying around that Peace & Justice are considering a run, which would essentially function as a pressure party to Labour the way ukip functioned as a pressure party that achieved Brexit, but from the left obviously. There are some other projects but it's uncertain what kind of base they'll have until we get into an election season. For now you can put me down as "not Starmer".
I can't say I've heard of them. Are you in a rural or urban seat? I think labour have votes to spare in urban areas so it's unlikely to be very successful but if you can get lots of people to vote like that in a rural seat you might be successful.
Personally I think what the UK needs is PR, and we'd probably need a big coalition of left and right to achieve it. Without PR a lot of the time the smaller parties achieve very little.
You won't have unless you're actively involved politically in some way outside of just voting once every 5 years. It's one of Corbyn's organising projects: https://thecorbynproject.com/
There have been longstanding rumours about backroom talks with union leaders about spinning out a new party and taking the unions(and their memberships) to it. But this partially hinges on having leftist leadership in all of the major ones which isn't the case at the current moment in time. There are 2 union leadership elections between now and the next election that will be fairly major in determining whether this strategy can work down the line.
PR is never going to happen without mass unrest there is literally no incentive for either party to support it without a political collapse occurring where it is used as a concession to prevent further unrest. Both parties benefit from FPTP and literally every leftist would immediately leave the labour party for proper democratic socialist and communist parties that would very suddenly gain massive amounts of power because more than a third of the country would vote for them if not for FPTP. It's just unrealistic to even discuss it because it's not happening, the libdems sank that ship, you can thank Nick Clegg for that, President of Global Affairs at Meta, best bud of Zuckerberg with the same powers as him at the company.
Mate, I am on the UK left. There's ridiculous factionalism.
Neoliberals aren't left.
I'm not neoliberal.
Stop being a wrecker then.
I'm not a communist either, schmuck.
Oh wow. A tory on an anti-corporate platform.
Remember this?
How does "left wing, but not communist" mean Tory to you? I've been demonstrating for socialism probably before you were born.
There are three options here, leftist which is anarchist or communist, but the anarchists don't vote so they're functionally irrelevant. The other options are neoliberal or tory. There aren't any others, pretending there are is absolute nonsense and your unwillingness to just speak straight instead of in riddles makes you sus from the outset.
Do you oppose capitalism? Usually socialism implies not capitalism.
Some people have perverted the term to mean “capitalism but we have social services.”
You realize things in the UK aren't that bad, right? Like we have it way better than America. Nobody I know is seriously struggling. We luckily still have free healthcare and a social safety net. I hate to say it but you're screaming over a much better situation than lots of countries are dealing with.
Even those remotely close to struggling don't blame capitalism and are actually right wing or centrists. At least this is what I have seen personally. It's not like these people are transphobic or racist either.
It's people like you guys that scream endlessly that are part of the problem. You're never going to convince anyone who doesn't already support the cause like that.
We also know the shit show that happened in Russia the failed ML revolution there, and basically everywhere else that tried it. Backing ML is getting you nowhere fast. Anarchists have more luck these days.
I think it's also worthwhile to point out that striking in the UK does almost nothing. This is partially because people don't strike at the same time. If they did it would be utter chaos. Things might even change.
It's also true that lots of strikes are not skilled labour. We all know jobs like bus driver are not paid very much, yet people complain anyway, and I can't help but think: you knew exactly what kind of job you were getting into. I sort of know better because bus drivers are an essential function regardless of what you think of them, so they should be paid fairly. Lots of people won't think like this though. It's also dead easy to replace unskilled labourers so scabs are always going to be a problem.
Also even the conservatives come up with schemes to help the people that are public spending heavy. Examples include furlough, eat out to help out, and the £2 bus faires that are happening right now. They aren't neoliberal at all. Schemes like that are not true right wing anymore than labour is true left wing in this country.
You are either taking the piss or you are completely and utterly sheltered in your middle class bubble.
4.2million children live in poverty, out of 12.7million total. This amounts to one third of children in poverty. The NHS is literally falling apart at the seams, my family works in the NHS, it has been strangled to death. A lot of it has been stealthily privatised and the rest is just being intentionally ruined. It's on its last legs and is barely providing essential care.
This is factually incorrect. Low income votes go left while high income votes go right. There was a blip created by brexit where this was not the case because everything became the single issue of brexit. Low income voters were convinced that voting for brexit would improve their conditions (they were lied to successfully) and incorrectly voting against their best interests. This however is now returning to left, although with Starmer at the helm and people outside of the politically engage the vast majority of the country has no idea what a slime he truly is. Backed by the media who want to see the real left fucked over as well, he'll likely do alright.
Where exactly? Show me the successful anarchists?
Unskilled labour is a myth used to suppress wages. I honestly can't believe you're spouting this while claiming to be left wing at all.
Furlough was an economic necessity. Eat out to help out is literally just a business promotion and has fuck all to do with helping the population it's about business owners, literally their target audience.
While much of the world is making buses 100% free.
And once again, this has nothing to do with helping people and is actually about helping businesses.